Verily to double its investment in healthcare startups

Alphabet's life sciences subsidiary Verily plans to expand its work with healthcare startups, TechCrunchreports.

Verily's investment and collaboration program Partner Space, which debuted in 2017, currently supports between six and eight companies. Thanks to a recent $1 billion funding round, Verily hopes to nearly double the amount of startups it supports to between 12 and 15.

Andrew Harrison, business and corporate development head and ventures lead at Verily, told TechCrunch the company's Partner Space investments are similar to Series A or B deals, but with the added opportunity to work at the company's San Francisco headquarters.

Discussing Verily's investment strategy, Mr. Harrison told TechCrunch: "the main thesis is digital health … Combining complex biological processes with very sophisticated informatics. It's the nexus of biology and informatics that we tend to focus on. We are interested in healthcare innovations that the world needs — that humanity needs."